We weren't too sure how long the boat was going to take, we had been told all sorts of times from 6 to 10 hours. We were expecting a larger boat than what we had. It was thin and had two bench seats down the side but they still managed to squeeze about 50 people on, some decided to sit on the roof. It was a very interesting boat trip, we passed through lots of little villages which literally floated on the river, small boats would pull up next to ours as we were going along and people would jump on and off. Everything was floating, the houses, the local shop, and even the police station. We were told that we would be stopping for lunch, however this was not the case, instead the guy handed around fresh baguettes which were nice but dry!

After breaking down and thinking we were going to be stranded in the baking sun, seven an a half hours later we arrived just outside of Siem Reap. Before we could get off the boat lots of tuk tuk drivers had jumped on trying to get business. We managed to get in one that would take the four of us and our bags but it was pretty squashed, we tried a couple of guesthouses but they were full, we finally found a nice one which was slightly over budget but we decided to splash out and go for it.

That night we headed to pub street, as you probably guessed it was lined with bars which we had to try. After a single drink we all felt a bit light headed, probably because we had been up since 6AM and had only had a baguette for breakfast and the same for lunch. We managed a couple more drinks and met with some friends of Lee and Nicola's who they had also met in India. We then headed to an Indian curry house, our first curry since India but it didn't really compare.

The next day we visited the museum to learn a little about the history of the Angkor Period. It was very interesting but there was a lot to take in. The museum was full of Budha sculptures from the temples around Siem Reap and explained about everything. By the time we left we could only remember a little of what're had learnt.

We both then headed for our first massage. We had seen a company in the guide book called Seeing Hands; a massage company set up to support blind people by training them how to massage. We both laid on the beds and asked for a back and shoulder massage. The masseuses then climbed over us and started pressing our backs. Kates was a lot more gentle than Pete's, at points he was silently screaming. They then moved onto our heads, Pete was again surprised how much pressure the skull could take. Then back to the shoulders, down the back, the bottom which was again worrying as Pete's was putting so much pressure on his bum bones he was scared that he might slip. They then worked down the legs to the feet where they pulled our toes (which Kate hated) and punched our soles. We had not been able to talk throughout the massage so when we left and Pete explained how painful his was Kate laughed as she enjoyed hers, the women was obviously a lot more gentle.

We then made our way to buy tickets for the temples and headed to Angkor Wat to see the sunset. This is the largest and most renowned temple of Siem Reap and was beautiful although it did have some scaffolding over the front entrance. We then headed back in to town for some traditional Khmer food and some drinks.

We again got up very early, 4.30AM to go and see the sunrise over Angkor Wat. We arrived in the dark and made our way over the moat which surrounds the temple, it was rather eery in the dark. Once we got inside there were hundreds of people standing around the lake trying to get the best view of the temple. As the sun came up Angkor Wat reflected in the lake, it was so picturesque as you can see from the photos. We all took hundreds of pictures. From here we visited Ta Prohm temple which was used in the Tomb Raider film, many of the bars in Siem Reap have cocktails named after Angelina Jolie for this reason. The temple looked amazing from outside, it had trees growing through the stone work and the walls (which can be seen in the photos) but inside there was scaffolding as they were reconstructing parts that had been destroyed by the Khmer Rouge. We then headed to Angkor Thom which is a collection of temples. The main one we wanted to see was Bayon, it was like a maze inside an the huge stone towers had carving of faces on each side, it was an amazing sight and even more amazing wondering how they had managed to carve these faces hundreds of years
ago.

By 10.30 we had been round all the temples we wanted to see so went back to the hotel and had an early lunch and few hours sleep.

We then headed out to the markets to haggle on a few bits which we have got rather good out, generally we get things for half the price. We then met the others for some more drinks and dinner, Pizza that night. We had another early morning to follow so we got a relatively early night as we had to be up at 4.30 again for our bus north.